


Nightmares and Teddy Bears

by rw_eaden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Human, Domestic, F/F, Kid Fic, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Schizophrenia, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 05:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11052576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rw_eaden/pseuds/rw_eaden
Summary: Jesse had a bad dream. Unfortunately, that’s common these days, and Anna starts to worry.





	Nightmares and Teddy Bears

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [SPN Rare Ships Creation Challenge](http://rareshipcreationschallenge.tumblr.com/). The prompt was Fuzzy Wuzzy, which is a brown color. Also, I'm not good at color prompts I guess, so the "color" is the teddy bear. *shrug*

Anna awoke with the vague, eerie feeling that she was being watched. She held her breath for a moment, talking in the darkness around her before shifting away from her wife and rolling her head towards the door. The hall light was still out, but there was a vague shape at the side of the bed and a tiny whimper.

Anna rolled over, flailing at the lamp on her bedside table until she was finally able to turn the light on. There, standing next to the dresser was Jesse, teddy bear clutched tight to his chest, tear stains on his cheeks.

“Oh, baby,” Anna breathed, flipping the blanket off and sitting up in bed. Beside her, Ruby grumbled awake.

“What happened? Why are you crying?” Anna asked, thumbing the tears away from his chubby little cheeks. 

“Bad dream,” he whimpered, chin tucked close to his chest

Anna wrapped him in her arms, holding him close to her chest and rocking back and forth. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Ruby asked, flipping on her own light and scooting into Anna’s space.

“Jesse had a bad dream.”

Ruby reached over her shoulder, stroking Jesse’s soft hair. The two locked eyes for a brief moment. Jesse had been having nightmares more and more often and it was starting to worry both Anna and Ruby. The adoption had only been final for about six months, and the nightmare had started at around the same time. Ruby had worried that the two might have something to do with each other, and as they kept getting worse, Anna was starting to worry the same thing. She’d thought, at first, that he might be the same way that she was as a child, experiencing night terrors and horrible vivid dreams for years before her first psychotic episode as a young adult. The thought had worried her much more than the nightmares being a result of adoption stress. Now though, she wasn’t sure which of the issues she would prefer them to be. Psychosis, as well as Anna,  had managed it so far, was not fun in the slightest, but it broke her heart that the reason he was stressed might be her fault in some way.

Jesse’s therapist still hadn’t come to a decision yet. She’d said that he was a fairly happy, pleasant kid, and the nightmare were unpleasant, but she wasn’t willing to rule out stress just yet. After all, the kid had just been adopted, had a birthday, and started a new grade all in the span of a few months. That had to be enough to stress any kid out.

“You wanna sleep with mom and me?” Ruby asked.

Jesse nodded against Anna’s chest. “Mr. Fuzzy, too,” he mumbled.

“Of course. Can’t leave Mr. Fuzzy out,” Ruby said, stroking the hair on the back of his neck.

She scooted back on her side of the bed, pulling the blanket down and flicking off her bedside light. Anna pulled Jesse into her lap, not an easy feat considering he was nearly sixty pounds of sleepy, dead weight, and scooted back on the bed. Jesse climbed off her lap and shimmied onto the bed, resting his head on Ruby’s pillow. He looked up at the two of them, eyes still wet but no longer whimpering, and curled into Ruby as she lay down.

“You okay there, kiddo?”

Jesse nodded.

Anna frowned, curling around her son and stroking his back. “I love you little bug,” she said.

“Love you too, mommas.”

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep. Ruby followed soon after, and Anna didn’t get a chance to talk to her before she did. Anna lay awake for most of the night, falling into a light and fitful sleep when she actually slept.

~~~

The next morning was a weekend, so at least Anna and Ruby could sleep in a little before they had to get up and to things. Or, that was the plan at least. Jesse was determined to get up and play not later than nine in the morning, so Ruby graciously volunteered to feed him and toss a ball around with him while Anna got a little more sleep. She finally crawled out of bed a little after ten in the morning and dragged herself into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. She was halfway through her first cup when Ruby came back in through the back door, her face red already.

“He’s really making you work for it today, isn’t he?” Anna asked.

Ruby laughed, pulling two water bottles out of the fridge. “He’s getting fast.”

“How’s he doing today?”

Ruby leaned back against the fridge door, screwing the cap off the water bottle and chugging half of it. “Same as he usually is.”

Anna nodded, staring out the window. Jesse was kicking a soccer ball around in the grass, kicking it too far ahead of him and racing to get it before whatever imaginary players he was pretending to play against got it first. He kicked the ball at the fence and jumped up and down, pumping his fists in the air.

“I’m worried about him,” Anna said.

Ruby slid up beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She set her chin on Anna’s shoulder and sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“What if it’s our fault,” Anna said.

Ruby frowned, and Anna could see her rolling her eyes out of the corners of her own.

“Babe, we’ve been through this. Whatever’s up with Jesse isn’t because of us.”

“But if it’s stress it’s gotta be us right?”

“If it is he’d be having these issues regardless of who winded up adopting him.”

Anna sighed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She swirled her lukewarm coffee around in the cup.

“You’re worried it isn’t just stress, aren’t you?”

“It’s too early to tell if it’s anything more serious,” Anna said, draining the last of her cup.

“And that bothers you.”

“You know it does.”

Ruby sighed, squeezing Anna tighter around the middle. “If it is there’s not a lot we can do about it until something more happens.”

“I know,” Anna groaned. “I just wish we could do something now. I don’t like it that he’s having trouble like this. If it’s just stress and it’s only nightmares and night terror, why can’t they give him something to help him sleep?”

Ruby stroked up and down Anna’s arms, swaying back and forth softly. “I don’t know babe.”

“And if it’s more than that you’d think they’d know.”

Ruby hummed again. “You’d think.”

“I’m just worried, Ruby. I don’t want him to have to live his life needing medication. I know it helps and if he has to have it I want him to have it, don’t get me wrong, I just – I don’t want him to have to need it.”

“Yeah, but, at least he has you to help him through it if it is something more serious.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “I could barely manage myself for years. I’m not exactly a role model for managing mental illness.”

“Maybe not, but at least you understand it. If it was me before I met you, geez, I dunno. I don’t think I would’ve even known what to do about it. I’d probably say and do all the wrong things. At least you know what he’s going through. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Maybe.”

“And yeah, it took you a while to get a handle on it, but you’ve got it pretty much under control now.”

“After thirty years.”

“Better than sixty.”

Anna sighed again, setting her coffee cup down on the counter and turning in Ruby’s arms. “I guess.”

“Think of it this way, if it is something serious, like some kind of sign of psychosis later you have a better understanding of that then most people do. If it’s just stress it will go away and we’ll look back on this and give Jesse shit about it when he has his own kids who keep him up at night. But if it’s more than that, well, maybe there’s a reason you’re his mom.”

Anna huffed a chuckle. “Fate? Really, Ruby?”

Ruby shrugged. “I dunno. Could be. I don’t know all the secrets of the universe.”

Anna shook her head and kissed her wife on the forehead.

“I just know,” Ruby said, “that if anyone is cut out to be the best mom for Jesse, it’s you.”

“I dunno, I’d say there’s definitely one other person who might be up there, too.”

Ruby rolled her eyes and smiled. “Yeah, well, someone’s gotta teach the kid to kick a ball.”

They pulled away and Ruby chugged the rest of her water before tossing the empty bottle in the trash and swiping the still unopened bottle off the counter. “Speaking of which,” she pointed towards the back door.

Anna watched her go, smiling as she watched her wife and child play. Hopefully, the nightmares would fade over time, but if they didn’t, well, she and Ruby would be there for their son, no matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated.


End file.
